Image Submission

OPN’s Image of the Week and After Image collections feature striking, original images or photos from our audience that illustrate or showcase optical phenomena. Submissions  for consideration should be single images (not composites of multiple images) that stand on their own, without additional labeling or text.

Not all submissions can be published. Final selection is at the discretion of the OPN editorial and creative teams.

Examples of images selected in the past can be seen in the online collections for After Image and Image of the Week.

To submit an image to OPN’s annual photo contest, please use the separate photo-contest submission form.


Fields with an (*) are required.

Maximum Length: 50 characters.
Maximum length: 25 characters.

Image resolution for after image submissions should be at least 2,500 x 3,000 pixels. For image of the week, 1500 x 1500 pixels is sufficient. File formats .gif, png, and .jpg are accepted.

For your image description, please describe in one or several sentences the optical phenomenon pictured in, or optical interest of, the image being submitted. Also, please provide, as appropriate, specific information about any optical equipment being used, details of interest regarding how the image was captured and processed, and the location where the image was captured.

Publication licensing agreement: I certify that I own the full rights to the images submitted, and I grant Optica, the publisher of OPN, the worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable right to publish the images in OPN magazine, the OPN website, in social media outlets and any other OPN or Optica products or materials. The actual decision on whether the material is published, on whether publication is online, in print, or both, and in what section of OPN the material will appear is solely at the discretion of OPN staff. OPN will include full credit to the photographer any time the image is reused. See OPN’s Image Use Policy for information on permissions.